Erasure
by Grazia D
Summary: A murder-suicide of an elderly Vermont couple leads Mulder to someone from his past. *Updated First Chapter*
1. Chapter 1

**Newport, Vermont**

**May 14th**

_04151945…12281973…08081963…02291948…_

"Edward! Dinner!"

_09221937…11111943…11041970…01041951…_

"Edward!"

_09111943…12261956…02121944…11301969…_

_239584758…002123548…031997820…539894758…_

_279861555…330532656…_

"Edward? What are you doing up there? Dinner's ready!"

His grip on the pen tightened at the sound of his wife's voice, causing the loop of the six to end abruptly before closing. He rocked forward in his chair and jabbed the tip of the pen through the paper and into the old roll top desk. Why was she _talking_? Why wouldn't she just _shut up_?

_448795842…447521458…_

_006952332…539994112…098001200…188311331…_

"Edward?" She was at the door now, peering into the bedroom, the look on her face matching the worried tone of her voice. "Edward? Are you alright?"

_Shut up! Shut up!_

His skin itched. They were crawling again. They were everywhere, crawling just beneath his skin, burrowing deeper and deeper into his body. He could feel them. He could see them. He could fucking _hear_ them. He could hear them chew on his flesh, feeding, growing bigger, leaving behind patches of dying skin. They feasted and they grew and they dug deeper into his body.

"Edward?" she asked again, much quieter this time as if afraid he would jump up and scream at her for interrupting whatever the hell he was doing. She took a step into the bedroom, their bedroom, then another before she stopped. Her legs felt as if they had been cast in lead and something in her stomach flipped slowly. It wasn't a good idea to get any closer. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

_11251958…11211986…11271973_

He paused, neatly one lined his last entry and printed _11251974_ next to it.

…_11291958…_

_11181949…11111952…11011980…11051959…_

They were stinging him now. No longer content with eating him from the inside out, oh no. They were stinging him with their awful barbs, poking through the top layer of his skin. Poking through his dying skin, angering the reddish-brown rashes that covered him. He could see their stingers, blue and red and white and black, as they punctured their way to the surface.

_11151953…11161968…11201956…11251978…_

He brushed at the barbs puncturing his skin, enjoying how easily they were broken from those horrible beasts that feasted on his insides. He could hear them in his head, chittering…angry and pained. They wormed their way deeper inside, the remaining barbs disappearing from sight. Still they ate. It sounded like someone tearing a piece of paper slowly in half as they pulled pieces from his body. It was so loud and he wondered if she could hear it. She had to. Right?

He could feel her looking at him. She had taken a few steps into the room but had stopped because she was frightened. What was she so frightened for? She wasn't the one being _eaten alive_.

Could she hear them? Could she always hear them? Did she always know? Why didn't she tell him?

Why _didn't_ she tell him? Couldn't she hear?

She didn't tell him because she knew. She always knew. She was them, wasn't she? She was always them.

"Edward?" she whispered. He couldn't hear her over the sound of the chittering in his head. The chittering clashing with the sound of his own voice screaming inside his head. Screaming that she knew, she was one of them, she would tell on him, oh yes she would. She'd tell and he'd disappear. Like the others. Well, not like all the others.

But he would finish. Oh yes he would. He would finish and that would be that. No longer would the bugs feast upon his flesh. No longer would the watching continue. No longer would he scream inside his own head, keeping him awake.

"Edward, please talk to me." Her voice echoed in her mind, distorted as if she were underwater and faint as if she were a million miles away. "You're scaring me, Edward."

_Shut your whore mouth, woman!_

Deep inside his bodies, the bugs fed. They had reached his lungs now, tunneling deep, laboring his breathing. His heart, which thumped rhythmically in his chest, would be next and then he would be dead. But they wouldn't get him. Oh no they wouldn't. He would win this game. Oh yes he would.

His skin itched, the redness had spread. She had to see it. Why didn't she see it? Why didn't she say anything?

_She's them. She's always been them._

She's them.

He set his pen down gently next to the notebook in which he had been writing and pushed the chair away from the desk. She took a step back as he stood, her brown eyes wide upon her face, her narrow bottom lip twitching. She wanted to cry, he had seen that look dozens of times during their 45 year marriage, even though he had never been the one to cause it. Until now.

"Edward…" she whispered meekly, slouching away from him without even realizing it. He jumped toward her, his skin itching, his mind screaming, the bugs eating. She let out a scream and turned to run, but the ponytail she wore would be her downfall. He grabbed a fistful of hair, his fingers intertwining with the salt and pepper locks, and yanked backward with a force that surprised the both of them. She fell to the ground with a heavy thud, the reverberations knocking over the small desk lamp he had switched on before writing. She screamed again and he picked up the pen he had so gently placed next to the notebook. His mind screamed, the bugs ate. He thrust the pen deep into her shoulder before his mind pulled him from the scene. He could hear her screams, he could feel the blood, warm and wet on his hands. He just couldn't see her anymore. Their bedroom was gone, replaced by blackness as she continued to scream.

Finally, the screams stopped. His voice in his head was finally silenced. The bugs even stopped their buffet for a few moments. The pen slid unnoticed from his hand. The room was in focus once more. There she lay, still at his feet in the darkened room (the light bulb had busted when the desk lamp tipped over). His shirt stuck to his body, held tight against his skin with sweat.

He stepped over her, toward the bed, their bed. He slowly lowered himself to the edge, reaching for the nightstand as he sat. Inside was the nine millimeter he had purchased back when those break-ins started happening up the street.

His hand touched the cool metal. His mind started hollering once more. The bugs resumed their feast, happily munching on his body. They won't get to finish, he thought happily.

**Arctic Circle**

**May 16th**

Teresa Acari shifted in her seat, her sling actually, and closed her eyes. Only that seemed to make the rocking of the plane worse. She brought her hands up to her eyes, careful not to bump a sleeping Regina Lloyd seated next to her, and pressed her palms against her sockets, wanting the pain deep inside her brain to go away, knowing it wouldn't until they were back on the ground. That would stop her stomach from doing the acrobatics, too. She had been up for nearly thirteen hours now since as the most junior member of the team she had the last watch before leaving, and it would be another seven before the C-130 would land in Reykjavik and they would be shuffled to another plane—this time a real one with adequate cabin pressure, heat and real seats—bound for JFK. Her headache wouldn't go away completely in a real plane, but her stomach would settle and maybe she could grab a few winks before their arrival in New York.

She took her hands away from her eyes and shifted again. She scanned the crowded cargo/seating area of the C-130, surprised to find so many of her colleagues asleep. No matter how many times this plane took her into and out of the Arctic Circle, she would never feel comfortable enough to fall asleep.

She glanced to her right, where Ian Huang sat, disappointed to find him asleep as well. Ian had been one of her closest friends since college and had been to one to mention her name for this project a year ago. She had been too excited for words and eternally grateful. She blended with the rest of the team quickly, and had loved every minute of her life since. The cold never got to her, the hours of sleep lost never bothered her, and the occasional loss of power and water never hindered her. She loved what NASA had sent the team to do and was a little sad to see it end after sixteen months. She would be transferring to the Cassini- Huygens Project, which lessened the hurt a bit. The thought of unlocking the secrets of Saturn intrigued her more than anything could have on her current project.

She was pulled back into reality when a lightning bolt of pain shot bounced around inside her skull. It made her eyes water and a heavy pressure build just behind her eyes. She moaned and leaned forward, resting her forehead on the bag. She could feel the blood rushing in her ears, drowning out the roar of the C-130's motor. The bolt of pain had turned into a dull pounding, which gradually began to increase. Her heart felt as if it were in her throat and her stomach sat like a heavy weight in her gut.

She didn't notice the constant background noise of the plane's engine had vanished, replaced by a nothingness, a complete lack of noise. The pounding worsened and the sound of the blood rushing in her ears became deafening. She vomited without realizing and pitched forward as the plane hit turbulence. The bag in her lap tumbled to the floor. She would have been thrown from her seat had she not been harnessed into the wall of the plane.

At once the pain was gone. She raised her head, noting everyone was still asleep, not at all bothered by the bouncing plane. A need to look out a window, any window, hit her and she twisted violently in her seat to find one, which was unsuccessful. She reached for the buckle to her harness, breaking a nail as she tried to unclasp it. She stopped just as she succeeded, aware for the first time of the complete silence in the cabin.

"No." she whispered, her entire body trembling with a fear she didn't know she had. "Not now. Please. Not now."

A blinding light poured in from the open cockpit area, filling the cargo area with a blue light that would have been painful for anyone else to look at. She twisted her body away from the harness and stood, grabbing Ian as he slept next to her, shaking him in an effort to wake him. His head lolled to the side and a hand reached up to brush her off.

She noticed the turbulence had disappeared, too. The plane beneath her feet felt as if it were suspended in mid air, hovering over what still had to be the Arctic, god she hoped they were still above land, held in place by a set of invisible hands. She grabbed the netting surrounding their equipment and luggage stationed in the center of the cabin and turned to look into the light. She could see the silhouettes of the two US Air Force pilots in the cockpit, seemingly unfazed by the whole ordeal.

She sank to the floor to the plane, her fingers still intertwined with the heavy netting, her legs suddenly no longer able to support her weight. The blinding light that washed over everything and everyone in the cabin, giving it all an ethereal glow, brightened suddenly. She lowered her head into the crook of her arm and waited.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thule Air Force Base**

**May 19****th**

"Agent Mulder?"

The man who exited the unmarked Tahoe, and had kept him waiting on the flight line for nearly an hour, extended a hand as he approached. A silver oak leaf glittered on his cover and the name tag on his service dress uniform read 'Howell'. He smiled as he shook Mulder's hand; a smile, Mulder noticed, that failed to reach his eyes.

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Howell, Commanding Officer of the 821st Airborne." The military man eyed Mulder warily after the formalities had passed; a sign business was about to commence. "I thought your office was informed before you left the States. This is a military investigation, signed off by the SECDEF himself."

"I was informed what happened to the flight was going to be turned over to the military." Mulder agreed, squinting against the glare of the midday sun.

"Then there is no reason for you to—"

"However, I'm investigating something else. It involves Dr. Acari and is 100 percent a Bureau investigation." An eyebrow rose.

"And what investigation is that, Agent Mulder?"

"That, I'm not allowed to discuss at this time. I need to see Dr. Acari." Mulder stood tall, meeting Howell's harsh gaze, holding contact with the Lieutenant Colonel. He could tell Howell was going through a checklist in his mind, weighing the pros and cons of allowing the FBI agent onto his base and speaking with the only surviving member of the downed May 16th flight. A surviving member who received not a scratch to her body and had been murmuring the numbers Edward Olsen had written, filling three dozen notebooks police had found stashed throughout his Rhode Island home, over and over when the rescue team had arrived. Not that Howell would know anything about the numbers Edward Olsen had written. The FBI didn't even know. The police report had found its way to his apartment the night after Olsen had stabbed his wife to death with an ink pen, by whom he didn't know; it had been slid underneath his door sometime during the hours he was at work.

Finally, Howell broke his gaze and turned back toward the Tahoe, indicating to Mulder to follow along. Not a word was said between the two men as Howell drove Mulder to the base clinic. He pulled the Tahoe into a spot marked "Base CO", and got out, Mulder following close behind. As the two men entered, an "Attention on deck!" was cried and all movement stopped, waiting for the permission to carry on. Once it was given, everything picked up right where it left off, almost as if nothing had happened at all.

"This is Agent Mulder with the FBI." Howell grunted to the nurse on watch. "He needs to speak with Dr. Acari." The young blonde looked over Mulder with a suspicious eye before glancing back at Howell.

"She's back in her room, but at fifteen hundred she needs to be back at the lab for blood draws, sir." Howell nodded and led Mulder down the narrow hallway.

"Dr. Acari is stationed in our quarantine room, but there really is no reason she should be." Howell said, leading the way though a set of double doors. "She's not sick as far as we can tell. So there's no reason to be worried about that. You can go right up to her if you want and ask her your questions. No one has had to suit up in twelve hours." At the end of the hall, they entered though another set of double doors marked ominously with "Do Not Enter without Proper Equipment and Permission. Quarantine."

Dr. Acari's bed was the first one on the right, just through the two armed doors separating the quarantine rooms from the rest of the area. She was sitting up in bed, completely focused on the book in her hand. Her dark hair had been pulled back, held with a band, her bangs hung limp against her forehead. There were dark circles under her eyes, exacerbated by the paleness of her skin. She looked as if she hadn't slept in weeks; a plane crash had that effect on a person.

"I'm allowing you access to Dr. Acari on one condition." Howell began. "You do not talk to her about our incident. You do not ask her any questions other than ones pertaining to your investigation. If she begins to talk about the incident, you will shut her down."

"Fine." Mulder pulled his gaze from Dr. Acari. "But I need to talk to her alone. National Security and all that." Howell's jaw set.

"Not gonna happen. That room is recorded twenty-four hours a day. And I will not allow a civilian to be unescorted on my base. If you don't like that, I can arrange a flight out of here for you within the hour." Howell smiled. "Besides. Someone has to be here to allow you ingress and egress from that room."

"Fine." Mulder, more aggravated that he was angry, pushed through the first door, pausing a few beats before continuing through the second. Once the heavy door opened, Teresa Acari looked up from her book, dark eyes wide with anticipation. When she recognized the visitor walking into her room, anticipation turned to surprise.

"Fox?" He smiled and planted a kiss on the top of her head. She felt warm to the touch, as if she had a fever. But Howell had said she wasn't sick, so maybe he was just imagining that.

"Hey, Teresa. How are you feeling?"

"What are you doing here?" Teresa asked, her eyes, still wide with surprise, never leaving his. "Are you taking me home? That Howell guy said I couldn't leave until the end of their investigation, but I really want to go home. And that Howell guy is kind of an asshole." Her words were rushed, tumbling together, her native Massachusetts accent thickening as it often did when she was upset or under stress, as her eyes moistened with the tears he knew would eventually fall. Mulder shook his head as he cupped her hand in his. There was no mistaking now her skin was almost hot to the touch. "Are you here about the crash? They said the military was investigating it."

"No, I'm here about something completely different." Mulder reached up and brushed away a tear as it fell down her warm cheek. "I need you to see if you recognize any of these numbers." He reached into his heavy overcoat and produced a thin notepad. He flipped past notes from previous cases until her reached the page he was looking for. Printed in hasty ink were the numbers Edward Olsen had written thousands of times. As well as Genevieve Wilson, Kevin Ryan, Maurizio Diaz and Franklyn Killian. Each one dead from a violent death just hours from one another. Each with notebooks filled with the same identical numbers.

"Here" He pressed the notebook into the hand that once held the paperback, now abandoned in her lap. She finally broke his gaze and studied the numbers. Mulder watched closely for a reaction, finding none and feeling a little disappointed. She shook her head and handed the notebook back to Mulder.

"Should I?" she asked, confused.

"This set of numbers right here," he pointed to first a set of nine, then a set of eight "are your social and date of birth. The other set of numbers correlate with other subjects of my investigation. These numbers were found in the homes of these subjects, written over and over."

"I don't—"she shook her head.

"Do you know a Genevieve Wilson?" Teresa shook her head. "An Edward Olsen? Maurizio Diaz? Kevin Ryan?" Each time he received a shake of her head. "I think these people knew you."

Mulder's attention diverted to the door he had passed through minutes before opened. Startled, he turned to face the man who entered, but not before tucking his notebook into the first pocket he could access.

"You're done." The man barked, his dark eyes blazing.

"Dad?" Teresa whispered.

"Mike, I—"The man cut Mulder off with a wave of his hand.

"I said you're done. Or I can call Assistant Direct Skinner and explain to him one of his agents gained access to a military instillation under false pretenses." Mulder shamefully looked away and back at Teresa, whose gaze switched between her father, Mulder and then back again. "I am correct, am I not? There is no investigation the FBI is conduction that includes my daughter, am I right?" Mulder stayed quiet, considering it was the best option. Michael Acari was visibly upset and with one phone call the State Department official could easily kick Mulder into the unemployment line.

"Our flight back to the US leaves in a half hour. When we reach JFK, I've booked you a separate flight back to Washington." Michael Acari's stare was hard and unwavering. "Teresa and I will head back to Boston."

"I thought this was a military matter." Mulder quipped sarcastically, unable to stop himself.

"It's a State Department matter now."


	3. Chapter 3

**East Falmouth, Massachusetts**

**May 30****th**

It had taken a solid week to track down Teresa. Messages left on her home phone in Maryland and her cell went unanswered. A call to her office in D.C. revealed she had taken leave and no they weren't sure when she was coming back. Mulder even went so far as to drive to her townhouse in Bethesda only to find she hadn't returned home. So, he turned to her contacts in Massachusetts, phoning first her best friend, Amy, who refused to say much more than Teresa was fine and for God's sake, leave her alone. It took seven phone calls to Teresa's mother before Elise would admit Teresa was staying with her in Manauhant, recovering and spending most of her days asleep and her nights roaming randomly throughout the house. Teresa had blamed it on the six months spent in the Arctic when Elise pressed.

At first, Elise had forbid Mulder from coming to Massachusetts to see Teresa. Michael had been adamant Teresa be allowed to rest. After much convincing, Elise had agreed to allow Mulder to talk to Teresa while Michael was back in Washington, called back by the White House.

So, Mulder had rushed to brief an indifferent Skinner who suddenly turned skeptical of his new case. Eventually, he received the green light, even with Scully, who had been paired with him in the first place to keep him grounded on vacation, to begin investigation before booking a flight to Logan International.

He pulled up to the house on Harlan a quarter after three in the afternoon. Elise was on the porch even before Mulder put his rented Ford in park. "Fox, honey." She hugged him tight before ushering him into the one story house. "How are you? Do you want something to drink? Eat?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks." He shrugged off his jacket. "Is she awake?"

"I woke her when you called from the airport. She's in her room." Elise grabbed Mulder's jacket from the crook of his arm before waving him toward the back of the house. "Go."

Mulder knocked once, waited for a response, and when he received none, pushed open the door. Teresa was seated at the window, her elbows propped on the windowsill and her chin in her hands. She looked back when he entered the room. She didn't smile.

A few moments of small talk made it painfully clear Teresa was not in the mood to speak to Mulder. The excitable, grateful Teresa had disappeared, replaced by the standoffish woman he's dealt with since the divorce.

"Fox, what do you want?" she finally asked. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out his notebook, already flipped open to the all important page. The page with the numbers.

"I want to talk to you about this." He held out the notebook. She didn't reach up to take it from his grasp.

"I don't know anything about those numbers. I told you. And I don't know those people. And I don't want to talk to you about little green men or government conspiracies or whatever else is stamped into your mind this week." She turned back toward the window; a sign she thought the conversation over.

"You do know these numbers. You were repeating them over and over when the rescue plane found you at the crash site." She turned her head so quickly and looked so alarmed he thought she was going to hit him. An unlikely occurrence, but it flashed through his mind just the same.

"I'm not supposed to talk about the crash." Mulder knelt down on one knee so he had to look up at her.

"You were saying these numbers. In the exact order Edward Olsen always wrote them. In the same order Genevieve Wilson wrote them. And Maurizio Diaz. Franklyn Killian. Kevin Ryan. Over and over. That's all you would say until they sedated you. "

"I don't know those people." She interrupted, her voice stressed.

"They're all dead. _04151945." _He read from the notebook. "That's Genevieve Wilson's date of birth. _239584758_ was her social security number. _02291948_ was Kevin Ryan's DOB. _539894758_, his social."

"Fox…"

"_09221937 and 279861555_ belonged to Edward Olsen. _08081963. _You know what that is."

"Quit."

"_031997820_ is your social, isn't it?"

"I said quit!" Teresa yelled, flinging herself from her seat. She pushed past Mulder and marched to the door of her bedroom. "I don't know what you're trying to get at and I don't know anything about those people. I don't know what you want from me." She continued her march out of her bedroom and across the hall when she slammed the door to the bathroom behind her after she entered. Mulder followed, stopping when he reached the door. He leaned lightly against the door.

"Franklyn Killian killed himself by jumping into the path of an oncoming subway car in New York City two and a half days before your crash." He continued quietly. "Kevin Ryan drove his car off a bridge in Maine four hours later. Sixteen hours later, Edward Olsen killed his wife with an ink pen before shooting himself in the head. Each one of these people whose date of birth and social I have written down killed themselves within hours of one another. The only one still left alive is you. And I want to know why." He stepped back from the door when he heard her bare feet approach, sticking slightly to the linoleum floor. A second later, the door opened. Teresa stared back at him, her eyes focused on his, her face expressionless.

"I don't care about those people." She said calmly, the tone in her voice chilling him. "I don't know them. I don't know anything about those numbers. I do know all I need to do is call my father and he can have you fired. I want you to leave me alone, Fox."

"Humor me." He pleaded. "Each person had three small incisions behind their left ear. Let me just see if you have one, too."

"Get out of my mother's house, Fox. Or I will call my father. It was just a plane accident. Nothing more."

"Teresa…"

"I said get out!" Teresa screamed so loudly it brought her mother running.

"Teresa, sweetie, what's wrong?" Elise glanced worriedly back and forth between Mulder and her daughter.

"I want him to leave."

"Teresa…" Mulder reached for her arm, grazing her skin slightly as she jerked her body away. He noticed she was just as warm to the touch as the day he first found her in the hospital in Iceland.

"Fox, honey, let's leave Teresa alone. She needs some sleep." Elise pulled Mulder toward the front of the house, away from the bathroom. The eerie calm never once left Teresa's face. Not when she screamed and not when she slammed the door shut once again.

"Elise, I need to talk to her." Mulder protested as the elder Acari led him away.

"Fox, she's upset. It's obvious she doesn't want to talk to you right now. Who knows if she's going to ever want to talk to you about whatever it is you want to talk to her about."

"Elise…"

"Fox." She countered sternly. "I know you wouldn't intentionally try and upset Teresa. And I know you have a job to do. But right now you need to think which one you want to focus on more—your case of Teresa." Mulder stared at Elsie for a long time before answering.

"I'm staying at the Green Harbor. Room seven. Will you have you get a hold of me when she's ready?" Elise nodded.

"You should go see your mother while you're here. I know she'd like that."


End file.
